Exploring macroinvertebrate biodiversity of Piscataquog headwaters

For each of our units you will create a project folder that will contain an Rproject along with data, scripts, and other forms of documentation as we explore that topic, it will function as a digital lab notebook. At the beginning of the semester, you should have created a directory on your Desktop or Documents folder names lb328 as a home directory¹ for all of our projects this semester.

¹ We will use directory and folder synonymously throughout this lab notebook

Go ahead and create a subfolder called 02_macroinverts, with folders called data, results, scr, and pubs to hold various files you will access and create for this unit.

You will be able to download data sets and edit spreadsheets as we gather data from a shared google folder here.

In this second unit, we will visit two of our headwater streams and collect macroinvertebrates, we will then determine which taxonomic groups they belong to², and use that information to assess and compare the ecosystem health of Rand Brook and Schoolhouse brook.

² we will identify the orders and families they belong to

The research objectives for this component of our headwater monitoring project is to

1. Compare species richness and diversity for selected headwater streams across spring, summer, and fall.
2. Compare stream habitat quality for selected headwater streams across spring, summer, and fall based on macroinvertebrate as bioindicators indices.

Learning Objectives

After completing this activity you should be able to

• Use a dichotomous key and morphological characters to identify aquatic macroinvertebrates to the level of order and family.
• Define what a bioindicator species is and describe the key characteristics for good bioindicators.
• Outline how macroinvertebrates are used for biomonitoring of ecosystem health.
• Explain how to calculate two commonly used macroinvertebrate bioindices used to assess stream health and apply them to a data set.